


Actus Reus

by eretria



Category: Ultraviolet (TV)
Genre: F/M, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-16
Updated: 2011-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-24 16:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eretria/pseuds/eretria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four people. One night. <br/>(Started sometime in 2006, it follows the events of the final episode "Persona Non Grata" and is, sadly, unfinished and will likely stay that way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Started sometime in 2006, it follows the events of the final episode "Persona Non Grata" and is, sadly, unfinished and will likely stay that way. Getting it out now is admitting defeat. Consider it a wip amnesty post, please?

  
_In a thousand drunken dreams  
I sunk in  
(Angela McCluskey - A thousand drunken dreams)_

***

Pub-crawl. He can’t remember how many he’s been in, only that as the night grew darker, he stopped caring about the quality. The smaller, dirtier, smokier the better.

Make him forget, drink the events out of his system.

Beer, several pints. Whisky. A handful of nuts and crisps now and then, and another whisky to wash down the stale taste. It’s blended, low quality, but it does its job well enough. The smoke burns his lungs like a wildfire and he’s chain-smoking again, doesn’t care about the cancer-warnings on the package, only cares about the nicotine rush, mingling with the alcohol in his brain.

 _”It is peace they are after Michael, final peace."_

He’s torn between raging at his own stupidity and opposing Pearse’s fanatic crusade. Who tells them that this really is true? Where’s the proof that the leeches are evil?

But the evidence Angie’s shown him earlier that night is suffocating, and Pearse is right. Vaughan’s right, has always been. His attitude has been correct all along. It’s himself who’s been the soft-hearted, easily manipulated fool. Too straight, Frances had said. Damn her for being right, too.

He needs more alcohol, needs to forget, needs to wash this away. He doesn’t need memories, doesn’t need his thoughts drifting toward his former best friend and his fiancée.

Doesn’t need the burning ache in his chest when he remembers the look in Kirsty’s eyes and the smile on Jack’s face and damn it, why are those images still there?

The memory of her eyes stays with him. The questions, the accusation. Why Jack? It could have been anyone from the stock of freeze-dried leeches. Anyone at all. But he had chosen Jack.

To punish her? Christ knows. It had been a punishment for him more than for her. But she hates him now, maybe even fears him.

He’s the fool who believed that maybe Jack would thank him for resurrecting him. That maybe it would change his best friend. That there’d be a chance to get over the choking guilt of neutralising him in the first place. Bringing Jack back wasn’t only for Kirsty. Christ, no. But he’s the arse in the end, easily used. His guilt doesn’t help him.

He downs another drink, feels it burning all the way down to his stomach. Sucks on the cigarette almost desperately. The rush doesn’t come strong enough.

 _“He was going to come after you.”_

 _“And maybe I would have liked him to. You ever think of that?”_

He can’t say what’s worse: That his former best mate is back from the undead with plans to nuke the world, or the fact that Kirsty will most likely never be able to look past today’s revelation: That Michael first killed her fiancée and then raised him from the dead. He wonders if he himself will ever get over what Kirsty told him on that bridge. Over what he saw in her eyes.

Is there enough whisky to drink this away, just for one night? To wipe the memories away? He has to try, has to stop the memories from invading his carefully errected wall of oblivion.

Things are piling: There’s Kirsty - _Christ, Kirsty_ \- ; a resurrected Jack he didn’t have the strength to take out again, even when he had him at gunpoint. There’s Vaughan’s accusatory and suspicious scowl, Angela’s insufficiently masked pain and anger, the discovery of the leeches plan … and Frances. He hasn’t spoken to her since Angela and Vaughan took her to see the Code V incident that was Paul Hoyle. He doesn’t know if she understands what she’s been shown, the implications it’ll have on her life. A life he’s not a part of anymore after his last visit to her place.

Another whisky, and he can’t stand quite straight anymore, is wavering behind the bar.

“How about you call it a night, mate?” the barman asks, interrupting the onslaught of unwanted memories, all suspicion about a sudden fit of nausea on Michael’s side written over his doughy face. His greasy hair needs trimming and he’s sweating and Michael suddenly feels repulsed by this place.

“Not going to projectile vomit on your bar, don’t worry, ” he slurs, half-surprised that he’s still able to form an actual sentence.

The face in front of him moves, but in strange, halting motions, like pictures in an old movie, on picture at a time, no connection between them.

“One for the road,” he orders and pushes five quid over the sticky top of the bar. He won’t get any change back and doesn’t care that the barman is ripping him off.

Kirsty would have hated this place. Jack would have loved it, would have loved to shine among the ordinary people, flashing his perfect smile at the scowling punters.

“Last order!” the barman’s voice is unnaturally loud and Michael flinches. His wristwatch swims into focus when his arm rises in slow motion. Almost 11 p.m..

He wonders if he can find a corner shop somewhere around here for another bottle to kill outside the dingy cosiness and the company in the pub.

If he moves now, he realises as the room around him starts to spin, he’ll fall flat on his face. Inevitably he does when he turns around, slipping forward in what seems like slow-motion and he thinks how this isn’t so bad, how it’s almost like flying until he’s stopped by the harsh reality of the oxblood coloured linoleum floor meeting his face. His eyes water at the pain and he feels a hot stream dripping over his lips and chin and wonders if he broke his nose. The sounds of the pub have dimmed back to a dull murmur, his body succumbs to gravity and refuses to act in accordance with his brain so he doesn’t even try to get up. Lies on the floor, his nose bleeding profusely.

The scent of his own blood is alluring, like copper and salty sea-air, another rush, like the alcohol and the nicotine. He touches the sticky liquid with his tongue, runs it gingerly over his lips, actually tasting for the first time, lingering. Hates the taste and wonders how the leeches can crave it. The thought that Jack had tasted his blood, too, makes him sick.

“Oi.”

It takes him a while to notice that someone is crouching next to him. It’s not the barman. The face that hovers above him is haggard, and grey from too many cigarettes.

“You all right there?” The Cockney is heavy in the gruff voice.

“Enjoying the view,” Michael slurs and props his head on his arm, pointedly staring at the whirling mass of legs and chairs and burn marks in the linoleum, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to lie on the filthy floor of a pub with a bleeding nose.

The face breaks into a toothy grin.

“Not much to see here, guv.” A hand comes out of nowhere and presses rough toilet paper to his nose. Michael winces.

“How about we hail you a cab?”

Michael tries to shake his head when the nausea hits him with full force. A dry heave wracks his body; the pork-pie he’s eaten earlier swirling dangerously in his stomach. The last thing he hears is the barman yelling: “Oi, not in here!”, then the hands belonging to the face grab him and hoist him to his feet, shove him out the door and lead him to the street where he empties his stomach completely.

 _‘Pork-pie looks interesting like this,’_ is the last thing he thinks, blurrily, before he passes out.


	2. Chapter 2

_My eyes ahead mind apart (Naked Raven - Saviour)_

***

She would love to be reckless sometimes. Shaking off the mask of the loyal member of the team, the perfect scientist, the ice-queen no one gets near to.

Reckless is a relative term. She now curses herself for wanting the exercise in the morning, as the walk she takes from the headquarters through the small dark park to her car, parked a block away, is already dangerous for a regular woman, but for her, especially after today, the danger is not just an abstract, general term, it’s palpable, hides behind every tree, every shrubbery.

Fear is a funny thing; it can handicap you, freeze you, hinder you, but it also makes you feel more alive than anything else. Angie March would thrive on that fear, but can't afford it, even the short way from the office to her car is an incredible risk. She feels the cage closing in on her even more than before and hates the feeling. But she does all this for a reason, doesn’t she? She can’t give into impulses and urges - not when she has a child who needs her.

The thought of Rose makes tonight's events - the doubts and hopes and fears - rush back with a vengeance.

Had she hoped that Mike had taken Robert? The erratic beating of her heart, stopping Vaughan from shooting Jacob, Kirsty or Mike - had that been professional interest, sympathy for Michael or had she wanted to see her husband resurrected?

She walks quicker, warding off a slight chill by pulling her coat closer around her. It shouldn’t be quite that cold in September, but that is London for you, never predictable.

Movement behind her, steps, whispered words and the adrenaline surge of fear is there, lightning quick. It touches her, surrounds her and she embraces it like a long lost lover, the cage opening for a fraction.

The steps behind her grow faster, and she speeds up as well. Whoever they are, they’re not leeches, this much is clear. Leeches don’t make noises, they don’t breathe loudly, aren’t lagging behind. If this was a leech meaning her harm, she’d be dead by now.

Her hand reaches for her gun, steady even while her hear beats a rapid staccato against her ribcage. The metal is cool against her palm. She knows she can handle a human attack, just doesn’t know how many she can fight at once. And what if they’re not after money? In her clinical world of high-tech she often forgets the very real dangers of the regular world. What if they’re after something else completely? What if the darkness doesn’t only give life to leeches, but to rapists?

Suddenly, the fear changes, doesn’t give her the power and speed she needs anymore but turns on her, the Judas kiss in Gethsemane. Her heart beats too loud, the blood rushes in her ears. Her legs feel leaden, her feet unsure in the dark. They’re getting closer behind her, now leering, their voices suggestive and disgusting.

Go on, go on, go on. Don’t stop walking. Don’t let them catch up.

 _I’m not leaving you alone, Rose. Don’t worry. Don’t --_

A hand grabs her shoulder roughly and then, without a warning, she’s pushed and falling to the muddy ground - thinks of Rose desperately, of how she forbid her to stay out in the dark - and can’t draw her gun and can’t breathe and can’t scream --.

The men are out cold before she can do so much as turn around to her back. She can hear the sickening crunch of bones breaking, of bodies falling and then everything is silent again - as silent as possible in a metropolis like London.

There are hands helping her up, surprisingly gentle. “You should take better care where you’re walking, Dr. March.” The man pushes a shock of hair from his face and in the sliver of light from a near streetlamp, she recognises the man Mike had once called his best friend. “You might get hurt otherwise.”

She blinks; once, twice. Then the muzzle of her gun is on his chest; her hands not quite steady, but this is something she knows, something that fits into her view of the world, something that’s safe in its own danger.

Jack Beresford laughs, amusement crinkling the skin around his eyes. A skin that will never age from now on. “You and Mike are so tediously alike.”

“Why?”

He understands without her having to say more. But he chooses to ignore the question. “Thank you for not shooting me straight away.”

She pushes harder. “Why?”

Jack yanks the gun from her not yet quite steady hands, reverses their roles. “You should learn to click off the safety when you really want to hurt someone.”

Angela holds his gaze, a silent battle. She refuses to let him think she’s weak now. She’ll never again be weak in front of a leech. “Why?”

“You’re smart, Doctor. You’ll figure out.”

Shots pierce the night, sparking off a rubbish bin. “Ah, the cavalry.” He reaches down, running two fingers gently down her neck. Revulsion makes he shudder. “Think better of us when we next meet. And give my regards to Mike.”

She doesn’t know if any of the shots hit him, only that when Vaughan finally reaches her side, Jack’s gone.

***

“For Christ’s sake, tell me you’re bloody well joking.” The sound of an exasperated female voice stirs him from his stupor for a moment.

“Sorry, missus.” Strong hands grab him and drag him to several stone steps, then drop him there. The floor and the legs and a doorframe sway when he opens his eyes, so he closes them again, his head seeking rest on a wall.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” The female voice again. “And why did you bring him here?”

“Was the only address he could remember and speak half-way clearly. I’m not his nanny, like. He gives me a place, I drop him there.” A sniff, interrupting the thick Cockney. “That’d be a tenner.”

“What, he hasn’t even paid?”

“He’s drunk off his arse, darlin’.”

Michael makes to rise to interject that he’s sober enough but stops when the world moves too quickly again. The wall is suddenly his best friend.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, clutching at the wall before warm arms drag him up with some difficulty and the female voice is near his ear: “When you’re sober, I’ll take great delight in making you pay for this, Michael Colefield.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the amnesty starts. I'm sad this never went anywhere, but the characters just didn't want to play anymore.


End file.
